


One From The Bucket List

by Britpacker



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Episode Related, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9146233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Trip and Malcolm both have a few things they’d like to do before the proverbial is kicked but it takes a desperate time to trigger desperate measures.





	1. The End

**Author's Note:**

> Finally found some inspiration for a Shuttlepod One fic! It came to me after listening to the blu-ray commentary with Messers Braga, Livingston, Keating and Trinneer, although unless it was down to Dominic making a crack about pink lips and snogging I really don’t know why. Takes up where the events in the pod fade out.

He knew it was crazy but Tucker was sure he could still hear the metallic clang of the airlock hatch. “Sorry about that, Lieutenant,” he muttered over the chattering sound of his own teeth. “Guess that’s _conduct unbecoming of an officer_ right there.”

The miserable lump under a blanket across the pod shifted, its ineffectual cover reverberating with every shiver. “I hardly think mine’s been much better. I’ve been a proper black cloud, haven’t I?”

His cap pulled down so low he was just a darkly stubbled chin, Malcolm Reed certainly looked more like a gloomy smudge on the horizon than the alert, composed and immaculate bridge officer he knew, and it broke Trip Tucker’s heart. “You were right, Malcolm,” he said, scooching across the glittering, rime-crusted floor to close up alongside the Englishman. “Looks like nobody’s comin’ to get us."

“S’pose there’s still time.” Whatever effect the captain’s best Kentucky bourbon, served well chilled, had had on Reed was long since dissipated by pure, unremitting cold. “Sorry. That’s probably your line.”

Fingers slipping on the bottle, Tucker sloshed the last few drops of booze around. “I’ll drink t’ that,” he drawled. “Unless…”

“You have it.” If he never tasted that particular beverage again it’d be too soon. Reed’s lips, no longer tingling with cold fire, safely beyond the stage where numbness had set in, creaked into a tight half-smile at the thought. His chances of tasting anything again were pretty slim, and getting slimmer by the minute. “You should get your blanket back.”

Tucker yanked the peak of his cap and tried to scowl. “What, give me another five minutes of freezin’ time?”

“If they’re the five minutes it takes Enterprise to sweep in and save the day, aren’t they worth having?”

“Point taken.” Actually getting a grip on the thing was another matter. His hands rebelled against the listless instruction of his brain and Tucker’s ass slithered dangerously on the frozen metal. “Gawd dammit!”

“Here.” Together, with a little bumping of hips and shoulders, they managed to retrieve the recalcitrant blanket and Reed slithered back to his previous position with his arms outstretched, holding his covering out like a pair of bedraggled wings. “Get in, Commander.”

“Figure it’s a little late for that, Mal.”

The moment the diminutive was out he wanted to drag it back, but Reed looked more puzzled than affronted. “Nobody’s ever called me that,” he announced.

Somehow, Tucker wasn’t surprised. “Well nobody’s called me Charles since I was five years old and got caught with my hands in my Grandpa’s fishin’ kit either,” he said, manipulating himself into a kneeling position between the slighter man’s thighs. “How was I s’posed to know he didn’t keep all those worms for feedin’ the birds?”

“To coin a phrase - Ouch.”

“That’s what I was saying by the time Mom finished with me.” He was closer now, right between the thighs. “You know, if we’re supposed to be sharin’ our body heat it’d help if you’d stop that damn shiverin’.”

“I doubt there’s heat left in either body to share – Charles.”

For a moment Reed feared he’d pushed it too far; then his ear was assaulted with a blast of raw laughter and a hand, rendered heavier than he was used to by lack of feeling, clouted him hard against the shoulder. “Guess I asked for that,” Tucker conceded, frowning at the scrape of frost between their flight suits. “But I’m thinking - this’d work better with me bottom.”

Reed’s dark head tipped to one side and for an instant Tucker identified a low hum of reluctant warmth where the Englishman’s exhale struck his neck. “You might consider rephrasing that in your official report,” he said mildly.

“If I ever get to write it - I’ll bear that in mind. C’mon, you’re skinnier than me. _Roll_ , dammit!”

Under other circumstances, Reed considered as he willed his disobedient limbs to follow his superior’s order, this might fit well with one of his most cherished fantasies. Grappling with the gorgeous Chief Engineer had held an appeal both aggressive and erotic from his first few days aboard Enterprise when those languid cries of _“keep yer shirt on Lew-tennant”_ had seemed to haunt him regardless of location and hour. Suddenly he was profoundly grateful for the cold permeating his marrow. 

Not that it mattered: in all probability they’d both be dead in a couple of hours, but he would sooner go to his end with his dignity – and his secrets – intact.

“Better?” Husky with exertion Tucker backed himself up against the bulkhead, legs parted just wide enough for the slighter man to nestle between. Clumsily tucking the ends of his blanket in around the blond, Reed grunted.

“Relax, Malcolm.” He could feel the weight of arms encircling him and awkwardly Reed lifted his to hook around his companion. “I’m not gonna pull a move on you, and the cap’n’s a broadminded kind of guy. He won’t put y’ on report for bein’ found dead frozen to a superior officer.”

“Captain Archer’s attitude isn’t likely to be my biggest problem under the circumstances, Commander.”

Tucker’s hiss whistled by his ear. “I thought you’d given up that pessimistic attitude of yours – oh, right. That was a joke, yeah?”

“Gallows humour.” Beneath the peak of his cap, Reed unleased a cheeky grin. “He’s a nosy bugger, the captain – begging your pardon for the bluntness. If that explosion showed up as anything at all on their sensors he’ll be hitting warp 4.96 to investigate.”

“I’m gonna have my work cut out t’ rebuild a whole engine from scratch.”

“Well look on the bright side. If you’re dead, it’ll be Hess’s job.”

The weight against his back increased: the nearest, he gathered, Tucker could manage to a hug. “Thanks,” the Southerner said wryly. With a chuckle Reed dropped his head onto an appealingly broad shoulder.

“I do have a reputation to keep up,” he said placidly. “The Grim Reaper,” he added by way of explanation when a larger-than-usual shudder suggested he’d confused the other man.

“Sorry. Again.”

“It’s all right. I’m hardly the kind of stimulating company a man wants in his last hours.”

“Could be worse.”

Reed felt his head lift of its own accord, and fuzzily he regretted it. Trip’s shoulder – he supposed under the circumstances _Trip_ was probably acceptable – made such an excellent pillow. “Really?”

“Yeah. ‘magine bein’ stuck in here with T’Pol.”

The dark-haired Brit snickered. “Nice bum,” he said, exaggerating the leer in his entirely-too-sober tone.

“Pity about the conversation.”

“Hmm. I suppose you’re right.”

“She’d probably ’spect us to be quiet while she meditated.”

“I wouldn’t let her use that bloody lamp as a candle. Waste of oxygen.”

“Malcolm?”

“What?” 

Tucker sucked in a deep breath, then blurted. “I don’t wanna die in a freezing shuttlepod.”

“I’m not sure anybody’d _choose_ it, but no. Neither do I.”

“This is gonna sound selfish…”

A shaky finger found its way out of their woollen cocoon to rest on his lips. “I’m glad of the company too, Trip.”

It was the use of his name that did it. Tucker let his tongue slide out, snaking around the icy digit. Reed froze so completely that even his shivering stopped.

“Er, Trip?”

“Yeah?” 

“You’re going to die cross-eyed if you don’t stop staring at your tongue soon.”

He was going to die with all the contradictions and puzzles that were Malcolm Reed still unsolved, and to Tucker that was suddenly the definition of tragedy. It was also, for one moment only, a great big neon flashing opportunity.

He retracted his tongue. Arched his shoulders. And planted his numb lips right over the Englishman’s.

Briefly there was no response but as a dead weight settled in his stomach Tucker felt a subtle change. Reed’s mouth softened; opened. A sigh, sweet and weirdly warming, rolled across his tongue.

His lethargic mind took an eternity to process the simplest equation. Surely that meant Malcolm was kissing him back?

Hard and awkward, struggling manfully with flesh iced into semi-rigidity, but the clumsy pressure was having its effect. Somewhere, deep down inside his gut, Tucker could feel a little of his frozen blood liquefy.

When Reed dragged himself away his mouth was hurting. Not from the kiss, the Southerner guessed, but from the revival of sensation caused by a brief blast of human heat. “Feel that?” he croaked.

“Bollocks.”

“That’s not what I wanna hear when I’ve just been kissin’ a guy, Lieutenant.”

“Hurts.” Truculent, Malcolm stuck his cold nose in the side of Tucker’s neck. “And I’m assuming we’re calling this off-duty, Commander.”

“Got some circulation back.” It felt like his face was on fire but to scratch the itch meant sticking a hand out of their nest and Trip wasn’t prepared to risk that. “And if it helps, I figure we hit _off-duty_ around the time we broke out the bourbon.”

“In that case…”

Gently, thoroughly, taking time to map every crease and crevice of the other man’s mouth, Reed kissed until the pressure in his lungs reached bursting. “One off the bucket list,” he whispered, dropping his chin onto Tucker’s heaving chest.

“Huh?”

“Things to do before kicking the bucket, Mister Tucker.”

“Gotcha.”

In the quiet that followed he could almost hear the ice crystals forming, building up a thick silver crust to his nostrils and eyelashes. Time was running out. No more wild adventures. No more once-in-a-lifetimes to cross off. Mission accomplished.

_Time to accept reality, Commander._

“Malcolm?”

“Mmmm.”

Slipping away. He wanted to cry but granules of ice filled the ducts, stopping tears before they could form. _It wasn’t meant to end like this!_

Graceless, he dragged at the body against him, numb to the bump of Reed’s unresponsive frame against his hip and thigh. A small protesting sound escaped the lieutenant’s puckered lips, brushing Tucker’s cheek as he settled the smaller man fully against him. They weren’t even shivering now.

“I’m sorry.”

In the depths of his foggy brain he knew he had to say it. Yet as the blackness closed in, Trip Tucker’s last conscious moment was spent in wondering why.


	2. A Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not dead. Trip sort of knows that's a good place to start

Drowning. 

Panic clawed his belly and he flailed, his hands tangling up in something slippery and cool. “It’s all right, Commander,” a voice he thought he knew purred from a dozen light years away. “You’re quite safe, but if you don’t stop this thrashing around I _will_ place you in restraints.”

Phlox. Enterprise.

“Malcolm!” 

His eyes flew open on the name, the churn of his guts redoubled by violent upward motion off the bed. A rubbery hand slapped onto his shoulder, firmly guiding him back toward a single hard pillow.

“Lieutenant Reed is recovering well, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t disturb him when he’s only just gone back to sleep. I don’t want to sedate either of you: natural rest _is_ the best cure, but you both seem rather agitated…”

“We thought we were going to die on the damn pod, Doc!” At the faintest hiss, he lowered his rising voice, giving a worried look to his left. “And we thought…”

“Lieutenant Reed implied you’d seen the debris of our small collision, but as you can see we’re all quite safe.” Phlox had the perfect voice for a lullaby. Unlike his infant self, the adult Trip wasn’t soothed that easily. “Although if you hadn’t found such a dramatic way of attracting our attention…”

“That was Malcolm’s idea.” And it had saved their asses, just like he’d said. Give Jonathan Archer something to investigate and he just couldn’t help himself. Trust a good tactical officer to spot the potential advantage. “So much for the Angel of Death!”

“She’s not ready for you just yet, Commander.” Kindly, reassuring, Phlox squeezed his arm. “Captain Archer did think it would prove quite a trial for you to deliberately destroy an engine, however _worthwhile_ the sacrifice. Now, I’m going to dim the lights and leave you to sleep off the last of the alcohol in your system. It won’t have helped much with the cold, but no doubt it was a useful psychological prop…”

“Not so much as you’d think, Doc.” With a weak grin Tucker made a show of obediently closing his eyes, hoping the meek act would convince the relentlessly upbeat Denobulan to go away and let him alone.

It worked. With a quiet “Pleasant dreams, Commander,” Phlox gave his shoulder a last affectionate pat and padded away. A moment later Tucker caught the buzz of lights being lowered; then the soothing hiss of a closing door.

His eyes popped open. Tentative, aware of the slight spinning in his skull, he lifted onto one hip and peered across at the neighbouring bed. “Malcolm? Y’ okay there?”

Silence.

“He’s sleeping, Trip. You heard what Phlox said, the guy needs his rest.”

Damn, now he was talking to himself. Only his engines were allowed to make him do that.

As his vision adjusted to the light level he could make out Reed’s still form and, if he squinted hard enough, even convince himself he could see the younger man’s chest rise and fall in deep, even breaths. Cautious lest he make the frame creak and wake his friend, Trip eased onto his back, tucking both hands behind his head. They’d made it, thanks to Malcolm’s bright idea. He’d have to thank him, later.

When he was warmer. If that ever happened.

Impatient, he stuffed his arms down by his sides and wriggled until only the top of his head was exposed on the pillow. How was he supposed to sleep when, despite everything his mind was telling him about the ambient temperature on a starship, his body was so damn sure it was freezing?

No way was he going to get back to sleep. No way in hell.

*

Someone was knocking. Threshing on the other side of the hatch, and he couldn’t get it open.

His lungs were tight; his fingers trembled and dammit, why couldn’t he open the fucking hatch?

“Malcolm!”

Without a restraining hand Tucker reared off the bed with the force of a tidal wave, monitors flying off his neck and tearing down his chest as he moved. Fighting for breath he gripped the metal frame, blinking hard while the darkened Sickbay came into focus around him. 

Not the shuttlepod. Not the tightly sealed airlock with Malcolm’s frozen corpse rolling around inside. Malcolm was right there, sleeping like a baby in the next bed.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to check.

The last of Phlox’s sensors ripped off his forehead with a satisfying _zzip_ as Tucker swung his legs out and puttered unsteadily across the narrow space to peer down at the slumbering Englishman. “Oh, Malcolm!” he breathed, attention caught instantly by the silver snail-track of recent tears that glistened on the man’s finely moulded cheekbones. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s over. We made it, thanks to you.”

He saw it happening in slow motion. His hand reaching out, shaky fingertips ghosting in the tracks of those tears. His mind knew it should intervene but his limbs were ignoring the UT. 

Soft skin glided beneath the pad of his forefinger. Warm skin, Tucker reminded himself fiercely, faintly shocked by the scratch of stubble as his touch wandered down. Warm and alive, like the puzzled grey gaze that was fixing, its intensity alarming right off sleep, on his face.

He only hoped the lights were far down enough to hide a volcanic eruption. His face that was on fire. “Uh – hey, Malcolm.”

“What on Earth are you doing out of bed? Phlox’ll do his nut!”

Practicalities first. So typically Malcolm. “Shouldn’t you be wondering why I’m stood here strokin’ your face, Lieutenant?”

Heat permeated his fingertips, the muscles beneath them tensing as Reed cleared his throat. “That was going to be my next question. You’re shivering.”

“Too damn cold in here.” Or it might, Tucker conceded, have been him. Reed studied him for a moment, then lifted his blanket.

“Get in,” he said.

Okay, so now he knew he was hallucinating. “What?”

“Trip. Go back to your own bed or get into mine before we both freeze our fucking bollocks off.”

It was the shock that made him obedient, Trip decided. Even at death’s door he’d been faced with crisp formality, that resolute, aloof barrier of rank. To hear Lieutenant Reed swear – even more than the rarely-bestowed privilege of his chosen name, it felt like the ultimate gesture of alliance.

“There’s not gonna be much room,” he said doubtfully even as he clambered up alongside the smaller man. Reed rolled onto his hip, offering the majority of the mattress to the newcomer. 

“We can manage,” he said, dropping the single blanket down over their shoulders. “And I’m sure Phlox hasn’t been playing silly buggers with the heating controls, but…”

“I can’t get warm either.” Flat on his back, Trip jerked his head in silent invitation. After a moment’s purse-lipped consideration, Malcolm accepted.

His head came to rest on Tucker’s shoulder. One arm draped over the Southerner, a socked foot working its way between the blond’s, Reed exhaled deeply, consciously relaxing every muscle in turn. “Better?” rumbled up out of Tucker’s chest.

“Much better.” Deep down in his gut the last core of permafrost thawed out and Malcolm sighed again, letting his eyes drift shut. “’night, Trip.”

He knew his body was being manipulated but didn’t try to resist, sensing that the tipping of the ship on its axis was taking him somewhere he’d have gone willingly anyway, more fully onto that solid American breast. Malcolm didn’t open his eyes until the first brush of full, flexible lips across his mouth. “’nother one off ‘f mah bucket list,” the broadest of Florida drawls whispered.

The temptation was too much. Before his rational self could scream a warning Reed slipped his tongue into the open mouth and swept a slow, sensual circuit. “And mine,” he murmured, imagining the words being drunk all the way down to the legendarily iron-lined Tucker gullet. The hands settled lightly on his waist tightened.

Something wet and supple snaked over his teeth. For the first time since he couldn’t remember when, Malcolm Reed felt thoroughly, wonderfully _warm_.

*

“I’m sure there’s no need for concern.” Sickbay’s door hissed open before them and its presiding spirit stepped aside, allowing his captain precedence. “There have been no alarms triggered overnight. I’m sure we’ll find Commander Tucker and Lieutenant Reed are well on the road to...”

“Doctor?” Concerned, Archer swung away from an unusually pallid Denobulan, his gaze sweeping by three empty biobeds before it was roughly diverted by the blond head rested on the very pillow he’d last seen occupied by the much darker one of a certain British armoury officer. 

“Well this is a _fascinating_ development!” Scanner in hand Phlox approached the sleeping officers, peering into the tranquil face of the taller man before tilting his head to appraise the features of the other, half-hidden in Tucker’s throat. “There appears to be genetic material from Lieutenant Reed in Commander Tucker’s mouth and are you sure you’re not unwell, Captain? You look a little feverish…”

“I assume you’re familiar with Starfleet’s confidentiality protocols, Doctor?” Pleased with himself for getting the words out Archer could feel his colour receding, something in his heart beginning to melt as he contemplated the open, peaceful expressions on the faces of his unconscious officers. With an embarrassed cough, Phlox pocketed his device.

“Of course,” he agreed, scuttling back to the foot of the bed. “If you don’t mind my asking... you don’t seem _surprised_ by this development.”

“I guessed how Trip felt a while back.” That was hedging big-time, the captain mused, when he’d sensed the gregarious engineer’s attraction to his polar opposite from the armoury before escaping spacedock. “I’m just glad to see Malcolm’s not taking offence!”

“He certainly doesn’t seem displeased by developments: and I assure you, Captain, Denobulan physicians have very strict rules regarding disclosure of _personal information_. What happens in Sickbay _stays_ in Sickbay, and if you don’t mind I really have some data to look over in my office. I’ll keep you advised of any change in my patients’ condition.”

“I can take a hint, Doc.” Sparing a last grin over his shoulder for his entangled friends Jonathan Archer headed off to the bridge with a lightened heart. One of his many fears for the success of his mission was relieved inside its first six months.

Chief Engineer and Armoury Officer. They’d been a combustible mix from day one, by turn amusing and infuriating their crewmates with their bickering and banter. Sending them off in a shuttlepod looked to have resolved the issues between them even better – if a little more dramatically – than he could ever have hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally a story that's behaved itself and not turned into a ten part epic while my back was turned... I aimed for "short and sweet" with this, but normal, smutty service will doubtless resume shortly. Thanks for reading!


End file.
